Taxpayers also bought a Wrigley Field coin with authentic infield dirt, a plaque depicting Chicago Cubs great Ron Santo, a photograph of former Cubs manager Lou Piniella and mementos dedicated to the Chicago Blackhawks and their 2010 Stanley Cup win.

All told, the sports-related purchases cost nearly $790, and the items were for Township Assessor Larry Wicketts' office, according to records obtained by the News-Sun.

The News-Sun reviewed township spending records in the wake of Township Supervisor Cheri Neal's public admission that her daughter's cell phone bill was being paid with township funds, and that she regularly reimbursed the payments on her expense reports.

Neal and Wicketts are both elected officials, with Neal first taking office in 2001 and Wicketts in 2007. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated Zion's population at about 24,250 in 2015. The township and city boundaries are coterminous. The township budgeted just over $1.1 million in expenses for fiscal year 2016, documents show.

Wicketts' sports-related items were purchased through the online JCPenney store in February 2013, records show. The receipt is labeled "office decor."

Wicketts said in an email that he and his staff repainted the office in 2007 at no charge to the township and that he brought in his own "sports memorabilia décor."

"In 2013, I decided to put my memorabilia in my home," Wicketts said in the email. "I requested the purchased Sport Themed décor, not memorabilia, in my office and it was approved, by the Supervisor and Township Board."

Neal's public admission about the cell phone came after she was the subject of a long list of allegations that surfaced during her recent successful campaign for re-election. She defeated challengers Robert Surano and John Idleburg, capturing about 61 percent of the vote. Idleburg, a retired federal investigator with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, took out a series of advertisements in the Zion-Benton News accusing Neal of misusing township funds, citing documents he received through Freedom of Information Act requests.

Other items logged in the township documents include two limousine rides Wicketts took to O'Hare International Airport in March and September of 2013 — one for $145, and another for about $133. Wicketts said in an email he was attending two conferences related to his work as assessor and that the second ride was "a shared ride with another township."

"We felt this was cost efficient for the townships to split the cost of the ride to the airport," Wicketts said in the email, adding he was "pretty sure a taxi would be more" than a limousine.

The township also bought two framed motivational posters — which read "BELIEVE & SUCCEED" and "RISE ABOVE" — for $360 in April 2013, the receipts show. They were hanging in the case managers' offices, Neal said in a text message, and the purchases were budgeted under office supplies.

Link bill moves forward again

A bill in Springfield pushed by state Sen. Terry Link (D-Waukegan) has jumped another hurdle, bringing Lake County voters another step closer to voting in 2018 on whether they'd like to elect the chairman of the Lake County Board at-large beginning in 2020. The Illinois Senate has approved the bill, which now needs also to be passed in the state House of Representatives.

Right now, the board chairman is selected in similar fashion to the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, with members deciding among themselves who will be the chairman. For example, current Chairman Aaron Lawlor was elected in District 18 and represents Vernon Hills and Indian Creek, along with parts of Hawthorn Woods, Long Grove, Mundelein and unincorporated Lake County. The board then chose Lawlor to be its chairman.

Lake County is the only remaining Chicago-area county that does not choose its leader in a countywide election. Cook, DuPage, Will, Kane and McHenry counties all already do so.

"The Illinois Senate voted to give the voters of Lake County control over who runs their county government," Link said in a news release. "The more power you give to the voters on this issue the more responsive county government will become."

Township assessors respond to county

A group of five Lake County township assessors defended their property-valuation policies in a statement they issued after a federal judge last month dismissed a lawsuit they brought against the county.

After the dismissal, the county said the five assessors who brought the suit, "have unlawfully been making changes to property values annually," as opposed to every four years as required by state law.

The five assessors — from the Vernon, Grant, Cuba, Libertyville and Ela townships — said in the statement that their policy, called "annual equalization," is not illegal and is encouraged by the Illinois Department of Revenue.

Equalization is the application of a uniform percentage increase or decrease to assessed values in various areas or classes of property to bring assessment levels, on average, to the same percentage of market value, according to the county's website.

In the suit, the assessors accused Lake County Chief Assessment Officer Marty Paulson of making, "a blanket reversal of most of the (property valuation) changes (the assessors) submit, without even reviewing them," because, they alleged, Paulson believes townships should be abolished. The complaint accused Paulson of eliminating the changes the assessors made to more than 17,000 parcels of property within 72 hours, "simply to retaliate against the township assessors."

The complaint gave as an example one commercial taxpayer who, after a call to Paulson, received a revaluation reduction of $11 million without a hearing, reducing the taxpayer's taxes by more than $900,000 and causing other taxpayers in the township to make up the difference.

The judge dismissed the plaintiffs' claims, saying they did not sufficiently make the case that the county was depriving them of their equal-protection and due-process rights. The judge found the Illinois Property Tax Code gives Paulson the authority to revise the assessors' decisions.

The assessors accused the county in the statement of inequitably spreading the real estate tax burden by reversing their equalization measures. They noted the federal judge wrote that the assessors could bring their case in state court.

"Based on sales studies done on all areas of their townships, the assessors see that not all areas in a township increase or decrease in value equally from one year to the next and therefore should not be lumped together with an across-the-board factor established without input from the township assessors who actually value the properties," the assessors said in the statement.